Large dynamic range time-frequency signal analysis with application to helicopter Doppler radar data

Despite the enhanced time-frequency analysis (TFA) detailing capability of quadratic TFAs like the Wigner and Cohen representations, their performance with signals of large dynamic range (DNR in excess of 40 dB) is not acceptable due to the inability to totally suppress the cross-term artifacts which typically are much stronger than the weakest signal components that they obscure. AMTI and GMTI radar targets exhibit such high dynamic range when microDoppler is present, with the aspects of interest being the weakest components. This paper presents one of two modifications of linear TFA to provide the enhanced detailing behavior of quadratic TFAs without introducing cross terms, making it possible to see the time-frequency detail of extremely weak signal components. The technique described here is based on subspace-enhanced linear predictive extrapolation of the data within each analysis window to create a longer data sequence for conventional STFT TFA. The other technique, based on formation of a special two-dimensional transformed data matrix analyzed by high-definition two-dimensional spectral analysis methods such as 2-D AR or 2-D minimum variance, is compared to the new technique using actual AMTI and GMTI radar data.